


Without (a home)

by AStrangeDaze (TerraRising)



Category: SEVENTEEN (Band)
Genre: Break Up, Light Angst, M/M, Why Did I Write This?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-10
Updated: 2019-02-10
Packaged: 2019-10-25 07:59:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 863
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17721245
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TerraRising/pseuds/AStrangeDaze
Summary: Some things can be fixed, but only if you want to. But only if you want to.





	Without (a home)

“Is it that hard?”

 

His words ring out between them, reverbrating within the chasm that had formed before he even had a moment to wonder when they’ve moved so far from each other.

 

“Is it that hard for you say that you love me?”

 

Jeonghan hasn’t answered but he can’t help but ask again. The other man’s lips quirk as if what Joshua had just said was a particularly amusing joke. Because that was what they had become to him, right? Just a joke.

 

He waits because he wants an answer, needs to hear from Jeonghan’s own lips that they were over, that none of this mattered anymore. He stands there and feels as if the tide was sweeping the very ground from beneath his feet, feels his breath swell in his chest to an unbearable fullness until he chokes on it, suffocated by sea water that lay a thousand miles away from this tiny apartment. At what point had they drifted apart?

 

Jeonghan’s eyes are placid while his own emotions rage with the full force of a typhoon, the other man’s calm only enrages him further, and yet he cannot not look away, could not bear to. He tries desperately to read something from the other’s face - regret, disgust, remorse, the slightest hint of unwillingness, but he gets nothing. Jeonghan’s features are as arresting to behold as ever but Joshua cannot find a single crack in his mask; it was as it his lover’s heart had turned to stone.

 

When did this person whose mind he once swore he knew every nook and cranny of leave for a place that he couldn’t follow?

 

 _No_ , he shakes his head silently, swallows the pain that threatens to rend his soul to pieces as the realization hits him, _it wasn’t that he couldn’t follow, it was that at some point he decided not to._

 

The hand he hadn’t realized he had reached out falls limply to his side and Joshua struggles not to fall to his knees. It is Jeonghan who walks silently to his side and guides him to the couch, Jeonghan who it seems can still read him as clearly as ever, who handles him gently as one does shattered glass but whose hands don’t linger any longer.

 

“Did you think that it was easy?” Jeonghan’s voice is a low murmur, soft in a ways that the words itself are not, “Did you think that it was easy to admit that we’re not in love anymore?”

 

“Don’t say that,” Joshua rasps, hands coming up to clutch at Jeonghan’s sleeves but the other slips through his grasp like smoke, taking two gliding steps back.

 

“If I don’t say it, does it make it any less true?”

 

And in that moment Joshua thinks he hates him. He has never believed in violence as a solution to problems, has never raised a hand towards anyone, nor used force against any person in any manner other than jest. But in this very moment Joshua thinks that it might be worth it to throw allhis morals away if only to wipe that serene facade off Jeonghan’s irritatingly perfect face. Anyone who sees them now would be in for a shock, that it was Jeonghan who was so unmoved while Joshua alone worked himself into a frenzy.

 

It had always been Jeonghan who would fret first, who would flutter about Joshua pouting and acting coy at the slightest thing, as if afraid to lose his attention. It was always Jeonghan who was the more insecure of them two, who showered Joshua with affection as it that would tie him to Jeonghan more closely, and yet now it was Jeonghan who let go first.

 

“Who is it then,” Joshua spits out, “Who is it that’s in your heart now?”

 

Jeonghan frowns, the slightest ripple in an otherwise tranquil lake, but his brows smooth out quickly. “Just because I’m not in love with you anymore doesn’t mean that I love somebody else,” each word is carefully enunciated as Jeonghan makes his way back towards the door, shoulders just a little too stiff as he bends to pick up his bags and slips on his shoes, “It just means that we stopped fitting into each other’s lives.”

 

“We can fix this,” Joshua can’t help but beg weakly, but Jeonghan opens the door and Joshua is helpless to stop him.

 

“I’ll come back for the rest of my things next week.”

 

“ _Jeonghan_.”

 

“Joshua.”

 

Jeonghan turns, eyebrow raised, every movement neatly measured, and Joshua freezes. He should get up, should run to his lover and be the one to hang on to him for once. Should beg him to stay, should talk about the thousand and one things that lay rotting beneath his tongue, should do something, _anything_ other than sit here on the couch that they bought three years ago when they first moved in and stare dumbly.

 

But he doesn’t.

 

“That’s what I thought,” Jeonghan laughs lowly under his breath, “That’s what I thought. Goodbye Joshua, take care of yourself.”

 

The door swings shut behind him and Joshua is left alone in a house that stopped being a home months ago.

 

 


End file.
